[4][18] Colvin said, "But I made a personal statement, too, one that [Parks] didn't make and probably couldn't have made. Her first son died in 1993. Nobody can doubt the height of her character, nobody can doubt the depth of her Christian commitment and devotion to the teachings of Jesus." Colvin left Montgomery for New York City in 1958,[6] because she had difficulty finding and keeping work following her participation in the federal court case that overturned bus segregation. The driver looked at the women in his mirror. One month later, the Supreme Court affirmed the order to Montgomery and the state of Alabama to end bus segregation. In March 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks defied segregation laws by refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin did exactly the same thing. "She lived in a little shack. [30][31] Her son, Randy, is an accountant in Atlanta and father of Colvin's four grandchildren. A sanitation worker, Mr Harris, got up, gave her his seat and got off the bus. Claudette Colvin was the first person arrested by the police in Montgomery, AL for refusing to give up her bus seat. Colvin is not exactly bitter. ", Montgomery's black establishment leaders decided they would have to wait for the right person. March 2 was named Claudette Colvin Day in Montgomery. NPR's Margot Adler has said that black organizations believed that Rosa Parks would be a better figure for a test case for integration because she was an adult, had a job, and had a middle-class appearance. I had been kicked out of school, and I had a 3-month-old baby.. Associated With. To sustain the boycott, communities organised carpools and the Montgomery's African-American taxi drivers charged only 10 cents - the same price as bus fare - for fellow African Americans. Betty Shabbaz, the widow of Malcolm X, was one of them. Four years later, they executed him. She retired in 2004. The driver, James Blake, turned around and ordered the black passengers to go to the back of the bus, so that the whites could take their places. History had me glued to the seat.. When a white woman who got on the bus was left standing in the front, the bus driver, Robert W. Cleere, commanded Colvin and three other black women in her row to move to the back. Your IP: "I respect my elders, but I don't respect what they did to Colvin," she says. "There was no assault", Price said. . The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. She prayed furiously as they sped out, with the cop leering over her, guessing at her bra size. The pace of life is so slow and the mood so mellow that local residents look as if they have been wading through molasses in a half-hearted attempt to catch up with the past 50 years. Like Colvin, Parks was commuting home and was seated in the "coloured section" of the bus. "I was more defiant and then they knocked my books out of my lap and one of them grabbed my arm. King Hill, Montgomery, is the sepia South. Rosa didnt give me enough time to put in for a day off, she recalled. Colvin has retired from her job and has been living her life. "And since it had to happen, I'm happy it happened to a person like Mrs Parks," said Martin Luther King from the pulpit of the Holt Street Baptist Church. Two police officers arrived and pulled her from her seat. Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth were both African Americans who sought the abolition of slavery, Tubman was well known for helping 300 fellow slaves escape slavery using the, Truth was a passionate campaigner who fought for women's rights, best known for her speech, Claudette Colvin spoke to Outlook on the BBC World Service. When Ms Nesbitt, her 10th grade teacher, asked the class to write down what they wanted to be, she unfolded a piece of paper with Colvin's handwriting on it that said: "President of the United States. When the white seats were filled, the driver, J Fred Black, asked Parks and three others to give up their seats. And that person, it transpired, would be Rosa Parks. As in 2023, Claudette Colvin's age is 83 years. The bus driver had the authority to assign the seats, so when more white passengers got on the bus, he asked for the seats.". [5] Colvin did not receive the same attention as Parks for a number of reasons: she did not have "good hair", she was not fair-skinned, she was a teenager, she was pregnant. All I could do is cry. The boycott was very effective but the city still resisted complying with protesters' demands - an end to the policy preventing the hiring of black bus drivers and the introduction of first-come first-seated rule. She was convicted on all charges, appealed and lost again. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. I don't know how I got off that bus but the other students said they manhandled me off the bus and put me in the squad car. You can't sugarcoat it. She has literally become a footnote in history. After her arrest and late appearance in the court hearing, she was more or less forgotten. Parks," her former attorney, Fred Gray, told Newsweek. She refused to give up her seat on a bus months before Rosa Parks' more famous protest. Moreover, she was not the first person to take a stand by keeping her seat and challenging the system. On March 2, 1955, she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a crowded, segregated bus. "Whenever people ask me: 'Why didn't you get up when the bus driver asked you?' It felt like Harriet Tubman was pushing me down on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth was pushing me down on the other shoulder, she mused many years later. Performance & security by Cloudflare. The urban bustle surrounding her could not seem further away from King Hill. Later, she would tell a reporter that she would sometimes attend the rallies at the churches. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. In high school, she had high ambitions of political activity. ", Everyone, including Colvin, agreed that it was news of her pregnancy that ultimately persuaded the local black hierarchy to abandon her as a cause clbre. For several hours, she sat in jail, completely terrified. 2023 BBC. He was born on March 3, 1931, in Mound City, S.D., the son of Alfred Gunderson and Verna Johnson Gunderson. Claudette Colvin (born Claudette Austin; September 5, 1939)[1][2] is an American pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. The decision in the 1956 case, which had been filed by Fred Gray and Charles D. Langford on behalf of the aforementioned African American women, ruled that Montgomery's segregated bus system was unconstitutional. Colvin could not attend the proclamation due to health concerns. "[35], I dont think theres room for many more icons. Colvin was a kid. "She was not the first person to be arrested for violation of the bus seating ordinance," said J Mills Thornton, an author and academic. Born on September 5, 1939, Claudette Colvin hails from Alabama, United States. "The white people were always seated at the front of the bus and the black people were seated at the back of the bus. "But when she was found guilty, her agonised sobs penetrated the atmosphere of the courthouse. "I became very active in her youth group and we use to meet every Sunday afternoon at the Luther church," she says. Reverend Ralph Abernathy, who played a key role as King's right-hand man throughout the civil rights years, referred to her as a "tool" of the movement. [6][7] It is now widely accepted that Colvin was not accredited by civil rights campaigners at the time due to her circumstances. ", Some in Montgomery, particularly in King Hill, think the decision was informed by snobbery. She concentrated her mind on things she had been learning at school. "It bothered some that there was an unruly, tomboy quality to Colvin, including a propensity for curse words and immature outbursts," writes Douglas Brinkly, who recently completed a biography of Parks. Instead of being celebrated as Rosa Parks would be just nine months later, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin found herself shunned by her . "Mrs Parks was a married woman," said ED Nixon. Instead of being taken to a juvenile detention centre, Colvin was taken to an adult jail and put in a small cell with nothing in it but a broken sink and a cot without a mattress. Under the twisted logic of segregation the white woman still couldn't sit down, as then white and black passengers would have been sharing a row of seats - and the whole point was that white passengers were meant to be closer to the front. '", The atmosphere on the bus became very tense. "So I told him I was not going to get up, either. Parks's arrest sparked a chain reaction that started the bus boycott that launched the civil rights movement that transformed the apartheid of America's southern states from a local idiosyncrasy to an international scandal. They never came and discussed it with my parents. In July 2014, Claudette Colvin's story was documented in a television episode of Drunk History (Montgomery, AL (Season 2, Episode 1)). On June 5, 1956, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama issued a ruling declaring the state of Alabama and Montgomery's laws mandating public bus segregation as unconstitutional. It is this that incenses Patton. Colvin was one of four plaintiffs in the first federal court case filed by civil rights attorney Fred Gray on February 1, 1956, as Browder v. Gayle, to challenge bus segregation in the city. Now 76 and retired, Colvin deserves her place in history. "[21] Colvin recalled, "History kept me stuck to my seat. When Austin abandoned the family, Gadson was unable to financially support her children. "If it had been for an old lady, I would have got up, but it wasn't. [16], Colvin was not the only woman of the Civil Rights Movement who was left out of the history books. They remember her as a confident, studious, young girl with a streak that was rebellious without being boisterous. If she had not done what she did, I am not sure that we would have been able to mount the support for Mrs. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. All Rights Reserved. Colvin was a member of the NAACP Youth Council and had been learning about the civil rights movement in school. State and local officials appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court. By then I didnt have much time for celebrating anyway. Aster is known as a talisman of love and an enduring symbol of elegance. "He asked us both to get up. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Site contains certain content that is owned A&E Television Networks, LLC. [11][12], Two days before Colvin's 13th birthday, Delphine died of polio. [16], Through the trial Colvin was represented by Fred Gray, a lawyer for the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), which was organizing civil rights actions. Mine was the first cry for justice, and a loud one. "If any of you are not gentlemen enough to give a lady a seat, you should be put in jail yourself," he said. Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a1897c67fea0e3a On 2 March 1955, Colvin and her friends finished their classes and were let out of school early. The case went to the United States Supreme Court on appeal by the state, and it upheld the district court's ruling on November 13, 1956. When Colvin moved to New York many years later to become a nurse, she didn't tell many people about the part she played in the civil rights movement. ", 'Facts speak only when the historian calls on them," wrote the historian EH Carr in his landmark work, What Is History? Colvin took her seat near the emergency door next to one black girl; two others sat across the aisle from her. In the nine months between her arrest and that of Parks, another young black woman, Mary Louise Smith, suffered a similar fate. "I was really afraid, because you just didn't know what white people might do at that time," says Colvin. Claudette Colvin was born Claudette Austin in Montgomery, Alabama, on September 5, 1939, to Mary Jane Gadson and C. P. Austin. Despite her personal challenges, Colvin became one of the four plaintiffs in the Browder v. Gayle case, along with Aurelia S. Browder, Susie McDonald and Mary Louise Smith (Jeanatta Reese, who was initially named a plaintiff in the case, withdrew early on due to outside pressure). Two more kicks soon followed. Claudette Colvin, Who Was Arrested for Refusing to Give Up Her Bus Seat in 1955, Is Fighting to Clear Her Record The civil rights pioneer pushed back against segregation nine months before Rosa. For many years, Montgomery's black leaders did not publicize Colvin's pioneering effort. Second, she was the first person, in Montgomery at least, to take up the challenge. I probably would've examined a dozen more before I got there if Rosa Parks hadn't come along before I found the right one. In a letter published shortly before Shabbaz's death, she wrote to Parks with both praise and perspective: "'Standing up' was not even being the first to protest that indignity. Assured that the hearing would not take place until after her baby was born, Colvin nervously assented to become one of four plaintiffs all women, and not including Parks in Browder v. Gayle. On Thursday, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old black seamstress, boarded a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, after a hard day's work, took a seat and headed for home. That summer she became pregnant by a much older man. Colvin's son Raymond died in 1993. At the time, Parks was a seamstress in a local department store but was also a secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP). Three of the students had got up reluctantly and I remained sitting next to the window," she says. Nonetheless, Raymond died at the age of 37, reported Core Online. Sapphire was once thought to guard against evil and poisoning. The police arrived and convinced a black man sitting behind the two women to move so that Mrs. Hamilton could move back, but Colvin still refused to move. You have to take a stand and say, 'This is not right.'. In 2016, the Smithsonian Institution and its National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) were challenged by Colvin and her family, who asked that Colvin be given a more prominent mention in the history of the civil rights movement. But attorney Gray found it all but impossible to find riders who would potentially risk their lives by attaching their names as plaintiffs. ", She believes that, if her pregnancy had been the only issue, they would have found a way to overcome it. he asked. "Middle-class blacks looked down on King Hill," says Colvin today. "I went bipolar. After Colvin was released from prison, there were fears that her home would be attacked. American civil rights pioneer and former nurse's aide Claudette Colvin was born on September 5, 1939. image credit; BBC. Just as her case was beginning to catch the nation's imagination, she became pregnant. [25] Reeves was found having sex with a white woman who claimed she was raped, though Reeves claims their relations were consensual. In 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks' famous act of defiance, Claudette Colvin, a Black high school student in Montgomery, Alabama, was arrested after refusing to give up her seat on a public . In his Pulitzer prize-winning account of the civil rights years, Parting The Waters, Taylor Branch wrote: "Even if Montgomery Negroes were willing to rally behind an unwed, pregnant teenager - which they were not - her circumstances would make her an extremely vulnerable standard bearer. Claudette Colvin's birth flower is Aster/Myosotis. "I do feel like what I did was a spark and it caught on. BBC World Service. Soon afterwards, on 5 December, 40,000 African-American bus passengers boycotted the system and that afternoon, black leaders met to form the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), electing a young pastor, Martin Luther King Jr, as their president. Most Americans, even in Montgomery, have never heard of her. Two policemen boarded the bus and asked Colvin why she wouldn't give up her seat. 10. Claudette Colvin, 81, was a true pioneer in the Civil Rights Movement. In the south, male ministers made up the overwhelming majority of leaders. "For nobody can doubt the boundless outreach of her integrity. "So I went and I testified about the system and I was saying that the system treated us unfairly and I used some of the language that they used when we got taken off the bus.". It was a journey not only into history but also mythology. "[citation needed], The police officers who took her to the station made sexual comments about her body and took turns guessing her bra size throughout the ride. Her casting as the prim, ageing, guileless seamstress with her hair in a bun who just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time denied her track record of militancy and feminism. Her son, Raymond, was born in March 1956. It is a rare, and poor, civil rights book that covers the Montgomery bus boycott and does not mention Claudette Colvin. Taylor Branch. She also had become pregnant and they thought an unwed mother would attract too much negative attention in a public legal battle. And, from there, the short distance to sanctity: they called her "Saint Rosa", "an angel walking", "a heaven-sent messenger". E Television Networks, LLC that she would n't give up her seat his mirror loud one the emergency next... 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